Preliminary Review: Fate Core

I've finally been working my way through the Fate Core rulebook. 
My first exposure to Fate was in 3rd edition, with Spirit of the Century, which introduced it.  I spent a fair amount of time trying to understand the rules, but whenever I thought that I had it, I would stumble across a rule that I'd forgotten. 
The Fate Core System book has, so far, remedied many of SotC's issues in two main ways.  Firstly, as a separate core system book - with settings available in supplements - the book itself can be organized into chapters that are actually about the rules.  This should make it much simpler to get refreshers on how things work, and it should also make it much more common to re-see things, even if I wasn't looking for them, because they're in appropriate sections.  Also a plus:  Whoever did layout does seem to have done his best to make sure that each section is in whole-page increments - 1 page or 2 facing pages when possible. 
The second, and probably larger, way in which things have been improved relates to Fate Core itself.  For starters, reducing the default aspects to 5 per PC should make it easier for players and GMs alike:  Even in Spirit of the Century, it seemed like 2 childhood aspects and 2 Great War aspects was excessive, and the list could have easily been trimmed to a more manageable 8.  I also don't have to remember that the limit on the bidding war for a Compel is 3:  Now, the PC can just buy off the compel at 1, done-and-done.  Reducing the number of Stunts to 3 should also make things easier to track, and I'm fairly certain that starting the Refresh Rate to 3 will get the Fate Points flowing much better than they might have before. 
I also heartily approve of breaking skill uses down into 4 types (not all of which apply to every skill - specifically, most can't be used to Attack), and the various conflicts dice-roll events seem much easier to understand. 
I haven't finished the read yet, but I have the feeling that, when I'm done, I won't have much left to double-check.  All in all, I'd say that this is a good system. 

Questions Arising from Shadow of the Century

Evil Hat Productions, makers of, among other games, Spirit of the Century, are currently doing a kickstarter project for what they're calling "Fate Core".  In one of their updates, they announced an intention to make Shadow of the Century, a temporal sequel to Spirit of the Century.  (Watch the video, too.)
Some of this makes sense:  Once they start talking about it, 1980s action/adventure makes a lot of sense as sort of a spiritual sequel.  However, I'm left with some significant questions.

• What makes the people that the Centurions are training special?  With the Centurions in Spirit, there was something significant to their birth.  Are the trainees not special, and just chosen?  Or are they Decadions or something?  
• Has the existence of the Century Club had no influence on world events?  I know that pulp action requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief, but it seems hard to believe that the Great Depression, WWII, and the Red Scare/McCarthyism all happened as normal.  Maybe there needs to be some kind of alternate history in there to explain how we got to more-or-less the 1980s as we know them.  
• Why is there time travel built into the metaplot?  It seems like it might be highly unnecessary.  
• Why were Doctor Methuselah & Mack Silver specifically killed off?  I get that they'd want to kill off good guys & bad guys in equal numbers, but why those two specifically?  
• Was it really that easy to label the Century Club as a communist organization?  
• Is the Cold War still going on in the Shadow of the Century setting?  Did it ever happen at all?  

Obviously, there's just the announcement, and so not every detail will be filled in right away, but I feel like these questions are sort of fundamental.